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Comment by amatecha | Hacker News Reader

"It was so incredibly tragic that he couldn’t hear this majestic music that he created."

He couldn't physically hear the performance of it, but it's possible he could "hear" what it would sound like - and he very possibly heard it in his head before writing a single note down on paper (or however he recorded his music).

I'm not sure everyone has this ability, but whenever I've written/recorded music, I almost literally hear it before I even try to create it or play it. My memory of sound is REALLY strong. I've never had someone go "oh yeah, me too!" when I discuss this though, so I have no idea if it's a common thing or what. It's like borderline hallucination, the clarity with which I can recall music and sound. I would wager that a lot of composers over the years have had this ability, especially since you couldn't exaclty spin up an orchestra in your livingroom while composing an operatic piece in 1800 :)

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My son is a composer, and he told me that he doesn't even need a keyboard any more, when he composes (he composes on paper, then transfers it to music notation software when it's ready to distribute).

He also, sometimes, has a photographic memory for music. In university he had a listening test on a piece of classical music. He was able to visualize the score that he had studied when in high school, and identify the types and numbers of instruments.

It’s probably like writing. Writing by hand to avoid distractions then import into editing software

Well yes, but doing that with writing requires no special ability. If you can’t generate music accurately in your head then this simply wouldn’t be an option for you.

He can hear music he makes up in his head the same way many of us "talk" to ourselves

its like how i know html.

There a story that when in Rome the young Mozart of 14 listened to Gregorio Allegri’s famous Miserere and afterwards wrote it down note for note from memory.

The important point about this story is that the Church so revered the wonderful Miserere that it kept its score secret so it could only be performed in Rome, so Mozart had no other choice but to memorize it.

Reputably, Mozart had perfect pitch and a phenomenal musical memory and he composed almost without corrections—a look at his handwritten scores and that's obvious, they're neat and near perfect.

Your son is clearly one of those lucky people so gifted.

FYI, if interested, here's a YouTube recording of what Mozart wrote down from memory (truly amazing if you ask me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDOENZediM8

> the young Mozart of 14 listened

You mean “Mozart in the middle of his career” at 14 ;) (he was already an international star for seven full years before he was 14)

"You mean “Mozart in the middle of his career” at 14"

Sorry. Yeah you're right. I recall when I got to the age of 35 he died at I asked myself what the hell have I done in my 35 years.

The comparison was embarrassing (even now years later I still use that comparison).

Seems like a potentially unhealthy comparison.

But a true one :/

I don't reckon so, we know a great deal about Mozart and that he was incredibly productive throughout his working career which spanned 30 of his 35 years.

Thanks to Köchel and others essentially Mozart's entire life's work is very well documented and that over those 30 years he produced about 626 musical works most of which are of the highest standard, and of those some rank as works of sheer genius, not only have they stood the test of time but they still remain popular and well loved by millions some 233 after his death.

Mozart's talent and his life's work can thus be held up as a standard—a level of excellence—to which many of us would like to aspire.

What makes Mozart special, perhaps more so than many other famous composers, is how much he achieved in such a short life. He's up at the pinnacle with others who have achieved great things. Even for those of us who are not composers Mozart's yardstick can remind us of our own often-limited talents and work and how we wished they were better or how we might go about improving them. At times I experience such notions when listening to his music.

This is a beautiful comment, and I couldn't agree more.

There is only one standard of accomplishment and it's set by people like Mozart.

Accepting that is humbling, but it's required to know yourself and grow. My contributions probably won't amount to much, but Mozart (et al) have shown us what good looks like and it's fun to strive.

And thank you very much for your most welcome comment. It's nice to know one's posts are read but also that some appreciate them. :-)

You lived like a normal person during that time. That should be actually ok.

Should-ing on others is very close to another, similar 4 letter invective.

Right, one's just another paid-up member of the passing parade.

At least you're not dead yet, which makes you a much better organism than him by biological standards ;).

"At least you're not dead yet,"

Right, not yet anyway. But one thing's pretty certain I won't be a household name 233 after I'm dead. ;-)

A great aspect about famous composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. is that they still remain household names several centuries after their deaths because their compositions bring immediate pleasure to us whenever we hear them.

Now, that's a lovely way to be remembered.

You die twice as they say, once when you physically die and once when you are forgotten

Mozart is immortal in that sense

Love

Nice, that's great! People who compose complex, lengthy pieces always impress me. It's such a cool skill, and there's something so transcendental about it, somehow.

> I'm not sure everyone has this ability, but whenever I've written/recorded music, I almost literally hear it before I even try to create it or play it.

I absolutely hear music in my head but my sense of harmony is underdeveloped compared to my ability to suss out melodies. A few years ago I had a dream that ended rather cinematically with a 1979-era jazz fusion song that sounded like Alan Holdsworth sitting in with Weather Report. I can work out the bassline and top voice of the keyboards but immediately struggled with everything in between when I went to transcribe it. I learned (and subsequently forgot half of) second species counterpoint in high school theory class but it doesn't seem to help when it comes to the outside voicings that this type of music requires. Rhythms have always been kinda rough for me as well given the amount of time I've spent experimentally dotting quarter notes in Guitar Pro. I am, however, easily able to learn more diatonic popular music like rock and pop punk without consulting transcriptions barring any super-wide intervallic leaps.

I'm a barely-competent "musician" (heavy air quotes) as it is so I'd have to imagine that most mid-level musicians have what you're talking about.

> I'm not sure everyone has this ability, but whenever I've written/recorded music, I almost literally hear it before I even try to create it or play it. My memory of sound is REALLY strong

I’m the same. Details in sound is the same as details in vision for me, I can remember the fine details of complete songs seemingly forever (yet my memory for everything else is terrible). And I have the same thing where I have the sound and musical progression of what I’m about to make in my head, ‘playing’, before I even start trying to make it happen on a synthesiser or on my modular system. And I don’t just mean known sounds like violin, piano, etc. I’m doing sound design as well as composition in my mind (I can hear it) before I start doing it for real.

I can easily believe that Beethoven was capable of “hallucinating” the music that he was composing in the same way.

Interestingly, I don’t really get this when reading sheet music, only when I’m creating or reflecting. Presumably, it’s a different pathway in the brain.

> I can remember the fine details of complete songs seemingly forever

If you didn't buy the song, does it count as an illegal recording? /s

This was the main subject of a science fiction short story, unfortunately I cannot remember its title or author.

A term for this is the mind’s ear. You hear the mind’s eye used more often.

You can generalize the construction to any sense you can imagine.

Thank you for putting the idea of the mind’s tongue into my nightmares.

It could be an important faculty in some professions.

There’s a French show called le prochain grand pâtissier.

In one season there a guy who dislikes sweets (or sugar I can’t remember) but said he could taste it by smelling. The chefs didn’t believe him, but I think they were proven wrong.

That’s really surprising that chefs would think that - you’d think they of all people would know that smell is actually more of perceived taste than actual taste is.

Not super surprising, sugar has a strong smell (and really disgusting too - try sticking your nose in the bag sometime). I can usually tell how sweet something is by smelling it.

I can't find a quote I remember reading, attributed to Beethoven, something along the lines of "if people could hear what I hear in my mind, they wouldn't care about my music". Does that ring a bell (!) with anybody? I could not get any language model to help.

Try "the music of the spheres". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musica_universalis

I’m a musician too, and: yep, same. Many of my best songs occurred to me at work, or doing something else, and I grab a napkin or piece of paper and write down the chords and a melody and a few notes so that I can recall the idea later. But I don’t need an instrument in my hands to do this.

I am not a composer but I do have a similar memory for sound. I can "listen" to music in my head very vividly. It can go on for quite awhile almost subconsciously and when it ends it often feels like someone else turned the music off, leading me wondering what happened.

A trained or otherwise skilled composer can hear music in their mind by reading the score (and while he wrote it). For sure, Beethoven knew how powerful his music was. He also intimately knew theory and how music 'worked' and aside from inventing a great number of things in music, he applied theory expertly. Modern day composers in the conservatory track are expected to have the same set of skills. A trained conductor can do the same.

Many years ago a friend was looking at a new recipe to cook, and she asked me, "Can you taste a recipe?"

My first thought was "Huh? What?" My second thought was "Yes, I can taste a recipe." So I read it, imagined cooking it, and tasted it in my mind.

It tasted good, and of course I had a couple of minor suggestions. Maybe one was more garlic, but I always want more garlic.

She agreed with my ideas and had a couple of improvements of her own. When she made the dish, it was very very good, and tasted even better in real life than the original recipe tasted in our minds.

If you incrementally cook it in your mind and "smell"/"taste" it at various stages, you should be able to do it in your mind. Right now, I can "taste" one of the dishes that was made every Saturday at our home when I was a child; I had it so many times, I don't actually need to eat it anymore.

I wonder if there's an equivalent for "aphantasia" for the other senses. If there is, I'm pretty sure I have it for taste.

I can imagine whole detailed worlds and hold them in my imagination, but nothing tastes like anything, and I definitely can't taste recipes.

To be fair, it's possible it's underdeveloped because I don't taste things terribly well in reality either, but now I'm wondering about how all the senses translate to imagination!

Hmm. I can easily play songs in my head and imagine new ones, yet I have absolutely no musical background. I’m now wishing I had more time available so I could mess around on fruity loops.

Me too!

What to play next occurs to me and my hands just do it.

Have not checked if this Ted talk[1] holds up but for me playing instruments is very unlike anything else. Woodworking and cooking, while I enjoy them, do not have the same holistic euphoria to them.

[1] https://youtu.be/R0JKCYZ8hng?si=Of64EvoR1_iu818G

There is also this legendary composer from south India who has this exact ability - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilaiyaraaja

Musician here, and it’s the same for me. Recalling music is so detailed and vivid that it’s almost like it’s playing in the room with me. I’m sure it has something to do with how rewarding our brains find music.

Beethoven's deafness may have influenced his compositions in unique ways, leading him to focus more on the emotional part of music..

Being able to simply hear the music in your head by reading or writing it sounds like the highest possible audio fidelity.

I have this when I've been awake too long and am very tired, or, when I've just woken up and my mind is still dreaming.

I can play entire songs in my head during those drowsy moments, but once fully awake/alert, I lose the ability.

I got earworms but nothing super vivid.

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